Honestly the worst voice acting I have ever heard, it's beyond terrible - was Scarlett taking the piss?
Flat and lifeless much like this movie. I loved the cartoon but this no matter how pretty the cgi this film had no soul.
Flat and lifeless
@wolfbynyte I agree with you
Cheers!
Kaa in 1967 was not the least flat and lifeless... and was so powerfully-remembered that they HAD to at least put the character in, as that version of Kaa and NOT the original written version from Kipling, or else audiences would have been annoyed there was no hypnotic Kaa.
No one is going to remember this Kaa in 40 years.
Even if Scarlett's voice over work was less than perfect here, all is forgiven.
A) I think she did exactly what she was asked to do in attempting a hypnotic, seductive tone to it.
AND
B) Her voice over work as the computer in "Her" was so phenomenal that it makes up for all other lesser work (if you've seen "Her", you know what I'm saying).
I agree she was great in Her. I still think in The Jungle Book she sounds unbelievably dull and lifeless as apposed to hypnotic but each to his/her own.
shareI agree. I think it's her accent/pronunciation. She sounds like a girl at the mall. They should have gotten someone with an English accent. Emily Blunt would have been great.
shareI had no problem with ScarJo as Kaa. I just have a problem with the character being useless.
shareAgreed. See my post below.
There was so much more that could have been done to flesh out the character and make the role meaningful and memorable to the central story.
I have, over the months, come up with 3 or 4 takes on the character of Kaa which would fit this film, ANY of which would have been more interesting than... pretty much a flashback exposition dump.
Flat, lifeless voice acting for a flat, lifeless character in the film.
Kaa in this movie added absolutely NOTHING to the narrative and delivered pointless exposition in a flashback that inevitably didn't even contribute to the story. Mowgli NEVER thought of getting revenge (he didn't even seem to remember the 'vision' afterward), Shere Khan made little to no use of the fact that he'd killed Mowgli's parents to unnerve the boy... it was utterly useless.
We also are left to wonder how Kaa knew anything of Mowgli's past since we're neither told nor shown ANYWHERE that she was either present and hidden in the shadows during it all, or had been told about it by some other animal. And if she had, how then did she know Mowgli was that boy... unless she'd been stalking him all this time and waiting for her chance to seize the 'deliciousssss mancub'... maybe simply because she likes eating children but is too big to sneak up on them anymore? Kindof a suble homage to Roald Dahl's "Enormous Crocodile"-styled, perpetually-foiled, jungle predator?
See, those sorts of details and motivations are what writers generally do with characters... if they're not overpaid studio hacks. ;D
Just because you don't know what the kaa scene has to do with the story doesn't mean that it doesn't fit into the narrative, and just because OP doesn't like the actor's interpretation of the character, doesn't mean that she gave a bad performance.
''That one felt like my dad!''
It... doesn't... serve... ANY... purpose...
The only thing it does it dump background exposition for Mowgli... and never bothers to explain how Kaa even knows when she doesn't seem to have been present for it.
It's a useless scene only there for a star cameo and because everyone expects a snake named Kaa to show up and hypnotize the kid.
Glad to hear, I always thought she was overrated anyway.
shareThat's what I kept thinking through the whole scene. I couldn't agree more with the OP. She just sounded completely bored and boring--nothing sinister or seductive or 'hypnotic' about it.
shareI think she's a bit overrated now that she's so famous, she was great when she was younger, now I tend to find her a bit boring.
Regardless of that, she was all wrong for Kaa. If you are going to make Kaa female, then you need a really commanding voice, personally I'd go with Angelica Huston or Helen Mirren, or Sigourney Weaver. Someone who can sound seductive and terrifying at the same time.
"I'd go with Angelica Huston or Helen Mirren, or Sigourney Weaver"
Good suggestions. I'd add Kathleen Turner, Jessica Lange (whom I don't particularly like, but I think she can do "seductive and terrifying"). Or, really, just about any good-to-great actress (Meryl Streep, Laura Linney) who could have done SOMETHING with it.
oh yeah good choices too.. Jessica Lange would have been great. And of course Meryl, because she can do anything, not a fan of Laura Linney.
The other two actresses who can do creepy really well are Tilda Swinton and Eva Green.
As I said, not really that big a ScarJo fan, would love to see another actress as Black Widow (Eva Green??? but then we wouldn't have had her in Penny Dreadful!)